HMOS: Broad-spectrum antibiotic alternatives?

Human milk oligosaccharides (HMOs) – abundant in human milk – are known for helping protect breastfed infants from pathogens and for shaping their gut microbiota.

Now, researchers have found that HMOs could be as effective as the broad-spectrum antibiotics traditionally prescribed to pregnant women to prevent Group B Streptococcus from being passed to their newborns and causing serious bacterial infections.

See their full findings, just published by the American Society for Microbiology in this open access article: 'Human Milk Oligosaccharides Reduce Murine Group B Streptococcus Vaginal Colonization with Minimal Impact on the Vaginal Microbiota'.

FLRF is a proud contributor to this promising research, through the MOMI Seeds grant program for early stage, multidisciplinary research offered by the Larsson-Rosenquist Foundation Mother-Milk-Infant Center of Research Excellence (MOMI CORE) at the University of California San Diego.

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